Mexico's 1st independent candidate leads in exit polls

E. Eduardo Castillo and Katherine Corcoranassociated Press

Published
4:45 pm EDT, Sunday, June 7, 2015

Masked citizens and parents of missing students from Ayotzinapa burn ballots and other voting materials taken from a polling station, in Tixtla, Guerrero State, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2015. Security forces were not present in Tixtla, where an anti-election group burned all materials from multiple polling stations before clashing with another group of town residents determined to defend a polling place. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Masked citizens and parents of missing students from Ayotzinapa burn ballots and other voting materials taken from a polling station, in Tixtla, Guerrero State, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2015. Security forces

Masked citizens and parents of missing students from Ayotzinapa burn ballots and other voting materials taken from a polling station, in Tixtla, Guerrero State, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2015. Security forces were not present in Tixtla, where an anti-election group burned all materials from multiple polling stations before clashing with another group of town residents determined to defend a polling place. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Masked citizens and parents of missing students from Ayotzinapa burn ballots and other voting materials taken from a polling station, in Tixtla, Guerrero State, Mexico, Sunday, June 7, 2015. Security forces

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's first independent gubernatorial candidate was leading in exit polls as voting closed Sunday in central states after an election marred by sporadic outbursts of violence.

In elections seen as a litmus test for President Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of his Institutional Revolutionary Party appeared to be losing in the key northern state of Nuevo Leon, where independent Jaime Rodriguez, known as "El Bronco," had at least a 6-point lead in exit polls conducted by the television network TV Azteca and other media.

The margin of error in the Azteca survey, however, was 3.8 percentage points. The ruling party candidate, Ivonne Alvarez, acknowledged the vote was close.

Rodriguez's popularity in a state that is home to the business hub of Monterrey was attributed to voters' disgust with all political parties, each with its own corruption scandals.

This was the first election in the country allowing unaffiliated candidates, thanks to an electoral reform last year.

The horseback-riding, boot-clad, tough-talking Rodriguez earned his nickname after he survived two assassination attempts that left his car bullet-ridden as mayor of a suburb of Monterrey. He said the attacks were from a drug cartel.

His support harkens back to 2000, when another plainspoken cowboy candidate, Vicente Fox, managed to topple the PRI's 71-year rule and win the presidency for the opposition National Action Party.

Pena Nieto's PRI is seeking to preserve its commanding position in Congress, despite the president's diminished popularity

Protesters burned ballot boxes in several restive states of southern Mexico in an attempt to disrupt elections, but officials said the vote was proceeding satisfactorily despite "isolated incidents."

Thousands of soldiers and federal police guarded polling stations where violence and calls for boycotts threatened to mar elections for 500 seats in the lower house of Congress, nine of 31 governorships and hundreds of mayors and local officials.

Midterm elections usually draw light turnout, but attention was unusually high this time as a loose coalition of radical teachers' unions and activists vowed to block the vote.

The teachers' demands include wage hikes, an end to teacher testing and the safe return of 42 missing students from a radical teachers' college. Those students disappeared in September, and prosecutors say they were killed and incinerated by a drug gang. One student's remains were identified by DNA testing.

Protesters burned at least seven ballot boxes and election materials in Tixtla, the Guerrero state town where the teachers' college is located.

Soon after, there was an exchange of rock-throwing between protesters and hundreds of people who said they intended to defend their right to vote. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Ballot boxes were also destroyed in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. In Oaxaca's capital, masked protesters emptied a vehicle of ballots, boxes and voting tables and burned the material in the main square.

The state government reported 88 arrests related to the destruction of election materials and disturbances in the capital, Tuxtepec and Salina Cruz.

In Monterrey, two political parties reported that armed men were intimidating voters in three towns near the border with Texas.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong called it the "most watched-over" vote in Mexican history and said there were only "minimal" problems so far.

"That is good for all of us, to be able to carry out a calm process in which citizens may determine their next leaders and for that to be something normal," Osorio Chong said.

Mexico's National Electoral Institute reported that nearly 100 percent of polling places were able to open.

Among the most volatile states is Guerrero, where at least 10 people died in a clash between community self-policing groups Saturday, but it did not appear to be linked to the election.

Some cast blank ballots as a protest against a political class they consider corrupt and ineffective.

Violence ahead of the elections has already claimed the lives of three candidates, one would-be candidate and at least a dozen campaign workers or activists.